Story highlights

On a possible GOP proposal on immigration, he said he is not going to prejudge it

"Russian authorities understand the stakes here," Obama said of security at the Games

Once, Barack Obama spoke of what he wanted for his presidency in terms of healing a nation divided. "This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow, and our planet began to heal," he said.

Today, Obama is talking about executive orders and executive actions -- with a pen or phone -- if a divided Congress won't or can't act on an agenda he laid out this week in his State of the Union address.

But in an exclusive interview airing Friday on CNN, the President insists he has not recalibrated his ambitions.

"In no way are my expectations diminished or my ambitions diminished. But what is obviously true is we've got a divided government right now," Obama said.

"The House Republicans, in particular, have had difficulty rallying around any agenda, much less mine. And in that kind of environment, what I don't want is the American people to think that the only way for us to make big change is through legislation. We've all got to work together to continue to provide an opportunity for the next generation."

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Just days after his address to the nation, where he blended hopeful calls for a unified approach with declarations of presidential independence through executive orders, he sounded less than confident that Congress would come around.

"I think there are some issues where it's going to be tough for them to move forward, and I am going to continue to reach out to them and say here are my best ideas, I want to hear yours," the President said during the interview conducted in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

"But, as I said in the State of the Union, I can't wait. And the American people, more importantly, cannot wait."

"What we have done is to gather together 300 companies, just to start with, including, some of the top 50 companies in the country, companies like Wal-mart, and Apple, Ford and others, to say let's establish best practices," Obama said.

"Because they've been unemployed ... so long, folks are looking at that gap in the resume and they're weeding them out before these folks even get a chance for an interview."

In a wide-ranging interview that touched on everything from security at the Winter Olympics to the legalization of pot, here is what else the President had to say:

'The imperial presidency?'

Since the President announced 12 areas where he would take executive actions -- from raising the minimum wage for federal workers to creating a "starter" retirement savings account -- that would bypass Congress, he has been under fire from a number of Congressional Republicans.

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Photos:Photos: 2014 State of the Union

Photos:Photos: 2014 State of the Union

2014 State of the Union – President Barack Obama delivers the State of Union address before a joint session of Congress in the House chamber on Tuesday, January 28, 2014, in Washington, as Vice President Joe Biden, left, and House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio listen.

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Photos:Photos: 2014 State of the Union

2014 State of the Union – The underlying theme of Obama's fifth State of the Union address was his call for the government to work on behalf of all Americans in 2014, and his pledge to do so even if Congress refused to join him in an election year.

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Photos:Photos: 2014 State of the Union

2014 State of the Union – Vice President Joe Biden, left, and Speaker of the House John Boehner before the speech.

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2014 State of the Union – Members of the U.S. Supreme Court (from left): Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan prior to the president's speech.

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2014 State of the Union – From left, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida; U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York; and U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, wait for Obama's speech.

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2014 State of the Union – Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius arrives for the address. Obama called on Republicans to stop trying to undermine his 2010 health care reform law passed with no GOP support, saying, "The American people aren't interested in refighting old battles."

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Photos:Photos: 2014 State of the Union

2014 State of the Union – Obama said during his speech, "What I offer tonight is a set of concrete, practical proposals to speed up growth, strengthen the middle class, and build new ladders of opportunity into the middle class. Some require congressional action, and I'm eager to work with all of you. But America does not stand still, and neither will I."

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2014 State of the Union – Republican senators and representatives listen to President Barack Obama's speech during the State of the Union.

2014 State of the Union – US Army Ranger Sgt. First Class Cory Remsburg, injured while serving in Afghanistan, acknowledges the crowd during a standing ovation for him as President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union speech.

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2014 State of the Union – "Let's make this a year of action," Obama said. "That's what most Americans want -- for all of us in this chamber to focus on their lives, their hopes, their aspirations."

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2014 State of the Union – President Obama calls on Congress to "join the rest of the country. Say yes. Give America a raise" in minimum wage.

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Sen. Ted Cruz described the actions as "the imperial presidency," and House Republicans have threatened to rein in the President's use of executive actions.

"I don't think that's very serious," Obama said, adding that every president engages in executive actions.

He said his administration has been disciplined, taking such actions sparingly.

"We make sure we're doing it within the authority that we have under the statute," Obama said. "But I am not going to make an apology for saying that if I can help middle class families and folks who are working hard to try to get in the middle class do a little bit better, then I'm going to do it."

"It's a tough argument for the other side to make that not only are they willing to not do anything, but they also want me not to do anything."

And that he said would only make the low opinion Americans have of Congress even lower.

'Not going to prejudge'

The one area where Obama says he believes he can work with Republicans is on the subject of immigration and the path to citizenship, a cornerstone issue for Democrats.

The major sticking point between Democrats and Republicans will likely be whether or not the estimated 11 million undocumented workers in this country be given a path to citizenship. Obama refused to say whether he would veto a bill that did not contain such a provision; it is likely that House Republicans would not pass any bill that included a path to citizenship.

"I'm not going to prejudge what gets to my desk," he said.

On Thursday, House Republicans released a one-page document that outlined what they called the standards of immigration reform, which calls for legal status, but not citizenship.

"I think the principle that we don't want two classes of people in America is a principle that a lot of people agree with, not just me and not just Democrats. But I am encouraged by what Speaker (John) Boehner has said," Obama said.

"... I genuinely believe that Speaker Boehner and a number of House Republicans, folks like Paul Ryan, really do want to get a serious immigration reform bill done. And keep in mind that the Senate bill and the legislation that I've supported already calls for a very long process of earning citizenship. You had to pay fines. You had to learn English. You had to pay back taxes. And you had to go to the back of the line. And at the end of that, you could get citizenship."

The marijuana experiment

When it was pointed out that the President's remarks to The New Yorker magazine about marijuana -- which he described as a bad habit but not any worse for a person than alcohol -- contradict the administration's official policy on marijuana, Obama stood by his views.

The President declined to say whether he would support removing marijuana as a "Schedule One" narcotic, a classification that includes heroin and ecstasy.

"I stand by my belief based on the scientific evidence that marijuana for casual users, individual users, is subject to abuse, just like alcohol is and should be treated as a public health problem and challenge," he said.

Obama said his main concern is the criminalization of marijuana use.

"My concern is when you end up having very heavy criminal penalties for individual users that have been applied unevenly and, in some cases, with a racial disparity," he said.

"I think that is a problem. We're going to see what happens in the experiments in Colorado and Washington. The Department of Justice under Eric Holder has said that we are going to continue to enforce federal laws."

At the same time, the President said the federal government doesn't have the resources to police whether somebody is "smoking a joint on the corner."

Rather, he said, the government was working to make sure that drug traffickers and the spillover of violence from the drug trade are not "creeping out of this experiment that is taking place."

Obama offered what he described as a "cautionary note" for those who see legalization of marijuana as a panacea.

"I think they have to ask themselves some tough questions, too. Because if we start having a situation where big corporations with lots of resources and distribution and marketing arms are suddenly going out there, peddling marijuana, then the levels of abuse that may take place are going to be higher," he said.

'Win back confidence'

Obama did not suggest that he was disappointed with National Intelligence Director James Clapper for not being honest in his testimony before Congress last year about the mass surveillance programs that were revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Clapper later justified his untrue answer by saying it was the "least untruthful" one he could give. "Least untruthful" was not exactly a term Obama used on the campaign trail.

So did he have concerns about what Clapper said?

"I think that Jim Clapper himself would acknowledge, and has acknowledged, that he should have been more careful about how he responded," Obama said.

"His concern was that he had a classified program that he couldn't talk about, and he was in an open hearing in which he was asked, he was prompted to disclose a program, and so he felt he was caught between a rock and a hard place."

The President acknowledged that the leaks, including details about the wide-ranging use of the surveillance programs, damaged the confidence of Americans as well as other nations.

"It's going to take some time" to win back that confidence, he said. "It's going to take some work, partly because the technology has just moved so quickly that discussions that needed to be had didn't happen fast enough."

Russia understands 'the stakes here'

Neither the President, his wife nor his daughters will be attending the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Asked what he would tell close friends who asked if they should attend amid security concerns, he said: "I'd tell them that I believe Sochi is safe and that there are always some risks in these large international gatherings."

Much has been made about Russia's ability to keep the athletes, coaches and spectators safe in a region where terror threats are very real.

"The Russian authorities understand the stakes here. They understand that there are potential threats that are out there, and we are coordinating with them," he said.

"We've looked at their plans. I think we have a good sense of the security that they are putting in place to protect not only the athletes themselves, but also visitors there."

In large settings like the Olympics, there is always some risk, Obama said.

"I don't want to completely discount those. But as we've seen here in the United States, at the Boston Marathon, there were some risks if you have lone wolves or small cells of folks who are trying to do some damage," he said.

That said, the President encouraged Americans traveling to the Olympics to register with the U.S. State Department and read the material posted on its web site about "prudent measures" people should take.

'In harms way'

During his State of the Union address, the President brought many to tears with a tribute to Army Sgt. 1st Class Cory Remsburg, a veteran who was on his 10th deployment when he was injured by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.

Remsburg, who is now disabled, was sitting with first lady Michelle Obama when he was given a prolonged standing ovation.

Obama had met Remsburg before he deployed, before he was wounded.

As commander-in-chief, Obama said he meets what he describes as "amazing" service members who make up the country's all-volunteer military.

"But it also means only 1% of the American people are in harms way, and their families are the ones bearing that burden," Obama said. "Which means that when we make decisions about war, it is that much more important for lawmakers and the president to understand that there are consequences to this."